Building Security

Deutsch:

Sicherheit aufbauen

“Fire! Fire!” people of the past cried in helpless despair when a fire had broken out. People who happened to hear came running with their buckets and tried to extinguish the fire. Most often much too late. A great deal was destroyed and many people lost their lives. At best there may have been a resource of water in the neighbourhood and a person with sufficient personal authority to make the people present form a transport chain from the water source. Little by little special methods were invented, and people discovered that certain tools could be useful, one of them was the stirrup-pump. Then they had to attend to the problem of transportation, since special vehicles were needed to carry the pumps and they established connection points, or fire stations.

1) People also built watch, alarm and communication systems in order to have the rescue party in place as soon as possible. Cooperation between different local fire stations in the region was organised in order to combine resources for very large fires.

2) Little by little, probably after many mistakes and disasters, people discovered that it might be a good idea that those who were responsible for the turnouts also had gone through some education and training. Some people were assigned to be trained in handling the stirrup-pumps and later the fire engines. They also got training in how to direct turnouts, how to judge risks and possibilities in a certain situation, how to prepare for very exposed situations. As time went by this work was professionalised. Now we have a large and skilled fire-fighting corps, a stand-by capacity with high competence.

3) A very significant improvement evolved when it was realised that the key challenge was prevention and that the knowledge, awareness and skills from the whole public were needed. Ordinary people developed an understanding for fire-prevention. Electrical wires had to be properly protected. Fireproof walls were installed to prevent a fire from spreading to the whole house, or to the neighbouring house — or even the whole city. Lightning conductors were put on the roofs of high buildings.

4) People learnt to reduce the risks, e g for small sparks to blaze up making big and devastating forest fires. There were certain things, which must be avoided, for example burning brushwood after dry weather, smoking in bed or leaving candles or fires unprotected. This kind of knowledge and skills had to be taught in the schools. The professional firemen had to visit the schools regularly, to share their insights and experiences. They also had to carry out exercises, always emphasising the responsibilities of each and everyone to contribute to a culture of prevention.

5) The logic for risk reduction and prevention inside each state is turned completely upside-down on the international scene. Once a state introduced a risky and threatening device, all neighbours rushed to develop something even worse. Parallel with the steady improvement of security for their own homes and other buildings, the nations of the world have competed even more fiercely to increase their mutual capacity to inflict risk and destruction and invent increasingly efficient devices for elimination, first of whole houses, then blocks, then cities and finally the whole world in a very short time. They even call it security policy and continue to spend perverse amounts for the steady escalation of efficient methods of destruction.

6) In the aftermath of the horrors of the Second World War the international community started to prepare itself for — as the UN preamble states — saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. International operations in the Congo, in Iran/Iraq, in former Yugoslavia have — more or less successfully — attempted to “put out the fire”.

7) “Prevention” has become an important concept in many sectors of modern society. We are developing strategies, instruments, methods, rules and laws to prevent illness and disaster. Now the time has come to prevent war, to develop methods and working models, new security mechanisms, to identify and deal with dangerous conflicts. We need systems of “early warning” and systems of “early action” to handle conflict on all levels: in regions, sub-regions, nations and municipalities.

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8) There is already a manifest demand for people with a new kind of professional competence: one that should enable them to work in crisis- and conflict areas, side by side with the local people, to prevent violence, transform conflict and build peace.

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9) There is also a need for communication and transportation systems, for coordination, cooperation and clarification of roles between different professional groups and different sectors of society. And for new legal rules for true prevention.

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10) The key word is education — learning communication skills and developing an awareness of the values and attitudes, which promote peaceful relations.

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11) All this points the way towards a culture of peace and nonviolence — a culture in which each and everyone understand that prevention should be the first priority and that conflicts can be resolved by peaceful means.

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12) We live in a transforming age which needs transforming people. Our time needs young people with a vision of a world without war, who are willing to invest their resources and energy in it, and who will use their courage and compassion to face the risks inherent in their vision.

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13) “Time to Abolish War!” The call of the Hague Appeal for Peace should start the same determined and systematic effort in the international community to remove risky military objects, attitudes and modes of behaviour that started when the inhabitants of a small community first cried “Fire! Fire!”